Good Morning,

Happy Hump Day, everyone. We’re halfway up the hill and the distance down is the same as it would be up, so let’s keep pushing.

For our main course, we’re going to learn how T.S. Eliot and Zen Buddhism encourage us to pause in the present as the meeting place of past and future. Burning that off, we’re going to do a short grounding / mindfulness exercise. Wrapping up with our Book Nook, we’re going to read a passage from Eliot’s Burnt Norton.

Let’s dive in. Thought Breakfast is served!

So far this week, what we’ve learned about time is that the past is carried in our memories, and the future is carried in our intention. The present, however, is where our experience and intentions collide.

We usually imagine the present moment as the thinnest slice of time between the past and the future, but Eliot paints a different picture. In Four Quartets, Eliot calls the present moment “the still point of the turning world.”

He doesn’t mean that time stops and we should detach from life. The world simply keeps moving. The “still point” is the absence of motion and frenzy. It’s the place where the self isn’t dragged backward by regret, pulled forward by anxiety, or trying to escape the moment. It’s when the self is fully present inside the moment. Think: groundedness, not paralysis.

This describes a place where the memory (Proust) and possibility (hope, becoming) converge.

Zen Buddhism reinforces Eliot’s view of the present, saying the present moment is not a mere idea, mood, or vibe. It’s practice. It’s your attention embedded in the moment. Distraction pulls us into the past, future, or dissociating abstraction. Presence, then, returns us to the moment (the breath, as Watts would put it).

“The past belongs here through memory.
The future belongs here through intention.
The present is where we choose what either will mean.”

So here’s the contrast to the popular self-help view of presence. The modern idea is that we have to stop thinking about everything else to “just be here.” T.S. Eliot and Zen show us that the present is not escape; it’s alignment.

We don’t dissolve time, but stand inside it. At the still point, everything continues (movement, time) but the self becomes steady, calm, and flows with everything. So presence is not a retreat into inactivity but attention embodied in the flow of time and space.

Bring to mind one ordinary moment from yesterday or today. This could be eating dinner, driving to work, etc.

Ask yourself:

After this, ask":

Not perfectly. Not constantly. Just one moment.

“At the still point of the turning world.
Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards;
At the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement.
And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered.”
- T.S. Eliot, The Four Quartets (“Burnt Norton”)

Eliot shows us that the present is not an escape, but a place of gathering. At this “still point” we keep talking about, the past and future aren’t erased but are held together. The past is not replayed. The future isn’t rehearsed. The self doesn’t stretch itself across time.

Rather, the present simply becomes a place of grounding, a point where we meet our own life without running ahead or lagging behind. Eliot even warns the reader not to confuse stillness with complacency: “do not call it fixity.”

The practice, then, is not to stop time, but to stop scattering ourselves across it. Contrary to what we read in Proust, Eliot is telling us to experience moments as they are; not to draw on past relations or future potentials.

Munch on that for today. Make presence a practice; not looking for things to fix or things to gain out of it. Have a great day, and come back tomorrow for another steaming hot plate of Thought Breakfast!!

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Remember to stay mindful, smell the flowers, and take it easy.

Chef Ricky - Thought Breakfast